


The Game of Life

by DarkShadeless



Series: Overseer Sar [46]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Gambling, Gen, If You Squint - Freeform, Sar's vocabulary, Sith being friends, abuse of recreational spaces set aside for the search of enlightenment, i mean yeesh, some introspection, unrepentant cheating, we're all bastards here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-23 21:57:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18558670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkShadeless/pseuds/DarkShadeless
Summary: All of Sar's friends are assholes. All of them.





	The Game of Life

**Author's Note:**

> I love my babies so much XD

 

 

“Alright. Show of hands, you amateurs.”

Sar glares down at his cards balefully. Seventeen. _For kriff’s sake_.

He’s not the only one who’s starting to have an issue with V’riel’s smug face and his Force damned winning streak. Gril has apparently decided to forgo wasting his ire on his hand and reserve it for the guy bleeding them white. “If _that_ ,” his burning yellow eyes flash dangerously, “is another Idiot’s Array I will take you out back and _shoot_ you.”

Fighting words. A personal acquaintance should rate a stabbing _at least_.

While their current dealer is busy clasping his hands over his wounded heart, Sar rolls his eyes heavenward and gives his cards a flick. His five abruptly changes its mind about its value. “Could you flirt later?”

“Oh, don’t be such a spoilsport.” Coramin’s gaze glides over her present company as if she’s sizing them up for pleasure slave get-up in an appraisal so frank it makes V’riel fumble his stasis field with a squawk. A smirk tugs at her lips.

Well played.

Carpe diem and all that. Sar, who can and has fought _naked_ and has no shame to speak of, grabs for the opportunity with both hands. “Are we going to finish this or what?”

The four Sith turn their cards face-up with as much flourish as they feel is required. There’s a pause.

After a moment Sar nudges his glowering co-worker. “Timmns, this is where you show us what you’ve got. Didn’t you say you know how to play?”

The stink eye he gets for that is nothing short of legendary. Score. “You’re all cheating aren’t you?”

Sar glances over the spread. Pure Sabbac. Four of them. “We could just be really lucky, you know. That’s a hurtful assumption.”

“Right.” His friend drops his cards with a sigh. They sum up for twenty, not half bad, though it’s not nearly enough to win even second place here. Or it wouldn’t be if someone hadn’t pokered a little too high.

Reaching across the table Gril snatches up one of V’riel’s cards and waves it in his face. “Nice try. Two sevens of coin? Pay up, my friend.”

“What? _Shit_.”

“You know on Nar Shaddaa they’d scalp you for this.”

Sar can’t help but snort at that byplay. “I’m pretty sure they’d scalp him _anywhere_ for that. How did you screw up that badly?”

“I got distracted okay!”

Ah, it’s good to fool around sometimes.

The _downside_ of regularly hanging out with the same people sneaks up on Sar not two rounds later, while he is debating whether or not he should tempt someone into a deadlock. It would cost him the pot but the taste of their salty, salty tears would be so _sweet_ …

Cash, or petty satisfaction. Choices, choices.

Before he can decide Coramin’s attention falls on him like the shadow of an avril. The Force pings his senses with a prickle of danger. Uh-oh. What now? “Sar, light of our lives, high point of my morning watch rotation,” Sar eyes her suspiciously. His biceps are fantastic, that’s an objective fact, but even if she didn’t wield innuendo like a bludgeon crafted entirely for the purposes of psychological warfare that tone never means anything good. “I hear you’ve collected an acolyte of your very own. Will we hear an adorable little Sith-in-training call you 'Master' soon?”

Oh no. _Kriff me._ How did she get a hold of _that_?

Timmns, ever eager to assist when there’s a chance to compound his co-worker’s _demise_ , abandons his cards to add helpfully, “Are we talking about Kendru?”

“No. No, we’re _not_.”

With the pinpoint accuracy of Firaxan sharks Gril and V’riel turn to the source of that delicious bit of metaphorical blood in the water.

_Great, they’re never going to let this go. I’m flanged._

And they don’t even have to work for it. No, as usual the finer implications of the current situation fly right over his Jedi’s head at speed. When there’s an argument to be had Timmns forgets all prudence his damned Order is supposedly famous for. His bantha-headedness is a marvel Sar will contemplate when his gut isn’t churning with unease.

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

That is, apparently, the entirely wrong thing to say. Somminick’s frown turns thunderous. “I wish you would stop putting him down like that. Just imagine how he must feel.”

Sar clenches his jaw against a few unflattering comebacks. They’ll come out too cutting, too hard, too _true_ for the frustration driving him. “Nobody asked him to throw himself at me.”

“He _admires_ you.”

_And the Force alone knows why._

“I didn’t ask for that either!”

Vaguely Sar is aware that even V’riel, who would cheat his own grandmother on her deathbed out of her last credit chit, is slowly letting his cards sink to the table instead of taking advantage of this golden opportunity. Vaguely. He’s a bit preoccupied.

Timmns’ cool, steady light is bunching up into a sleet-heavy cloud. “Why are you _like this_. Every time he comes up you’re even more irrational than usual.” He presses the words past gritted teeth. His own frustration mounts but instead of coasting on the momentum Somminick hangs onto his calm. “Just tell me _why_ at least!”

The plea holds more tiredness than even disappointment and it slides right past Sar’s defences. He can dissemble with the best of them, all day any day, but when a ditona dziri asks you an honest question it demands reciprocation.

Timmns is his equal, his rival and his friend. Of _course_ he’d abuse that like an _idiot_. This is what Sar gets for letting an uzsiyin worm their way into his regards. Force, he can’t even bring himself to call him a outsider, the connotations are all wrong. Timmns isn’t breaking through the flank of Sar’s anything to inconvenience him. Not anymore, he's firmly at home in his space. Damn it.

Knowing his own heart is one thing. Putting what is inside of it into words, however begrudgingly, is another entirely. Especially in front of an audience.

… as one of Sar’s ancestors once said, _Honor rarely is served by that which is convenient._ Why does the glorious bastard have to be right so often?

 _“_ Somminick _. I’ve never had an apprentice before.”_ It’s like grating his own skin off with a vegetable peeler. Kriff. The things he is forced to do because of this asshole. _“_ Kendru can do better and he _should_ _.”_

In the curious void left by three Sith shielding for all they are worth while they rake in a fortune in vulnerabilities, Timmns cloud of righteous disapproval shudders in time to his stupid eyebrows arching in surprise. What follows is inevitable. Unavoidable. _Inescapable_.

His co-worker’s Force presence melts into _sympathy_. Sar is still breathing through emotions he can’t quite identify but associates with either flight or copious amounts of violence (mostly the second) when Timmns puts a gentle hand on his shoulder, radiating tentative understanding. By all the little gods.

They are all saved from whatever would happen next when one of the attendants on duty pokes their head into their alcove. Actually, kind of rude but screw that. Right now Sar would take an invasion of nightstalkers if it distracts Timmns long enough to forget about his attempts at emotional support.

“My lords-“ the attendant’s four eyes dart over their table, the cards and the pot that resembles a small dragon’s hoard of low value cred chits, trinkets and questionable foodstuffs.

V’riel waves a cred stick at them helpfully. “We’re meditating.”

“… of course.” Most of the Jedi on duty in the Halls of Contemplation have given up that particular fight. Their Sith brethren, as usual, are one step ahead and started demanding a cut before anyone else even caught on to the gambling ring in the making. Lucrative business, or so Sar hears. “My lords, if Lord Sar could make himself available? We have a rather insistent visitor-“

Before anyone can elaborate (or speculate) on that, not that Sar needs to, the dulcet tones of Darth Hexid’s voice rise above what is generally considered appropriate around here. “If you are so hard pressed for a teacher, I might consider you. If you have _merit_ of course.”

_Oh no. By the kriffing Force, please don’t._

Sar has just enough time for that fruitless prayer before Kendru outdoes her in volume and rudeness both. “Nobody asked you, you harpy!”

“Why, you-!”

* * *

Sar vaults out of their alcove in a move Somminick is vaguely impressed by.

After a few moments of silence accented by the increasingly colourful disagreement in the main hall, V’riel snaps his cred stick onto the table. “He’ll cave. Takers?”

Coramin huffs in all-encompassing condescension. “Sucker bet. He’s already halfway there.”

He apparently forgets that one flash of her very red eyes reduces him to a flailing mess long enough to pout at her, while at the other side of the table Lord Gril painstakingly picks through his cards. Absently, he adds, “One might speculate though how long it would take him to crack.”

His contemporaries perk.

“Three weeks.”

“Pah, two.”

“Hm. Personally I’d tend toward two and a half.”

Somminick surprises all of them and himself by interjecting, “Three months.”

They share a look even he can translate. ‘Wow, that Jedi moron.’ Apparently they come to the conclusion someone should at least make a token effort to dissuade him, lest Sar wreak bloody retribution upon them when they take more of his money than he approves of, no doubt. Somminick has no illusions about how much of a threat they think he is. It's somewhat entertaining, really.

V’riel ventures, still playing with his money with enviable dexterity, “Are you sure you want to go that long?”

Giving them his most serene smile Timmns slides his own cred stick across the table. “I’m sure.”

_Sure that you’re underestimating the sheer depth of Sar’s hang-ups, that’s for certain.  
_

Never let it be said he has learned nothing from the Sith. He can keep his mouth shut when he has to.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> On Sar's ruminations about the word 'outsider':
> 
> I shoved that one through the Coruscant translator and when I fed it the words it gave me one by one it turned out 'tnirma is' roughly translates to 'outside the flank' which my brain helpfully pointed out is another nice way of saying 'enemy'. Language is fun.


End file.
